As soon as we told Moran who we were, he refused to talk to us, saying that our blog has been “totally unfair.” He then pointed at me and asked me if I was one of my colleagues. “You’re not David Halperin, are you?” “Do I look like David Halperin?” I replied, incredulously, wondering how many South Asians would be confused for David Halperin. He shrugged. (Halperin tells me that he met with Moran and four other people for over an hour in 2010 at the Center for American Progress to discuss for-profit college issues; he said he was crestfallen that he did not make a stronger impression on Moran but excited to have been confused with a much younger colleague.)

As Moran turned to leave I asked him once more about his lobbyist job.

“Is there any conflict between you being a lobbyist and being head of the Democratic Party?”

“Absolutely not,” he responded.

“But you’re fighting [against] President Obama’s fight to hold this industry accountable against veterans,” I replied.

He turned again to face me and reply, but his colleague turned him around. He briskly walked away.